Hard Pressed for Six Ounces of Plum Juice
by Syberina5
Summary: A cross over with Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum Series characters and General Hospital characters; also the companion story to 'The Life on a Lie.' Cast: Carly, Brenda, Lula, Stephanie, Ranger, Joe, Sonny, others, and original characters.
1. Default Chapter

Hard Pressed for Six Ounces of Plum Juice  
  
By Syberina5  
  
Don't shoot me, I had to.  
  
Episode I:  
  
Brenda had come back to Port Charles for Ned's latest wedding. That it was his second to Skye had been the source of considerable irritation. Said irritant had fueled her to find a reason to stay on in town so that she could be present when Ned came to his senses and divorced the Non-Quartermaine...again.  
  
She'd decided to stay, the rote reason went, to look for new/fresh/interesting faces for her modeling agency, Unforgettable. Granted most of her models worked out of Europe and were superstars but she herself had been discovered in Port Charles. Look where her career had gone.  
  
After weeks of exhaustive searching—even though it only constituted a few hours of her workweek—a man had approached her. She'd never seen him before, she didn't think, and she'd never seen him again. He'd told her, if she was looking for interesting faces in Port Charles... really beautiful women, he had a man for her to go see. The stranger handed her a card.  
  
She'd called the number and set up an appointment with the man on the other end. Mr. Zirming had said that he was more in the habit of acquiring models for his company, but if she wanted to discuss something he was not adverse. They might be able to do business.  
  
She'd been sure they could, even if he didn't then know it; she'd been sure she could talk him into letting her take the girls with the most potential. After all, she'd never heard of him before, how good an agent could he have been?  
  
His portfolio of models had impressed her. They were all exceptionally lovely. She'd mentally earmarked a few she would attempt to represent.  
  
After her visit, as she was leaving the yacht Mr. Zirming's office was on, she'd bumped into one of the girls she wanted for her own agency. She'd called out to her and started her campaign to win the model's favor. She could, after all, make any one of the girls famous beyond their dreams.  
  
The young woman had behaved strangely, confusing and frightening Brenda. She'd warned her to leave while she still had a life to return to. Then she'd walked away and suddenly it had hit Brenda.  
  
Drugs. It got the best of them.  
  
It was likely the reason the girl hadn't been picked up by a really top-notch agency already. Brenda'd shrugged and left the floating palace thinking of ways to find and woo the other models to her company.  
  
Why hadn't she heeded the woman's warning? Why had she pursued Mr. Zirming's girls? Brenda sighed. She was now in quite a pickle. And all because of her naïveté. Few would guess—Brenda would never admit it—but she knew at heart she was really just a sweet, innocent little girl who trusted the world to be just as kind-hearted as she.  
  
Thinking back to those weeks of childish ignorance, Brenda realized the old adage was true. Ignore-ance was bliss. She'd ignored the signs from above that more was at stake than a couple good contracts.  
  
Now Brenda was tied up. What's worse was that she was tied up with Carly. What was unbearable was that she was tied up with Carly and really, really thirsty. She hadn't had her plum juice in days.  
  
Carly's plan had required a hide-out/stake-out sort of a deal and the rundown warehouse they were hiding in—to keep the boat they had used to followed the yacht when it left Port Charles from being suspicious—didn't exactly come stocked with a weeks worth supply of organically grown and hand squeezed plum juice.  
  
When Brenda had asked Carly where she'd packed the plum juice she'd retorted that there wasn't any. They were on a mission, Carly'd said, they packed necessities. If they'd been off for a week in the sunny Caribbean _then_she'd have packed plum juice. For now, Carly'd continued bitterly, she'd have to do with essentials. Like water. Which was all Carly had packed.  
  
All that she'd found in the provisions bag was water, Powerbars, jerky, some fruit, and potato chips. Brenda had grumbled over the chips. How were _they_essential? It had touched off another row.  
  
When the smoke cleared around midnight and Carly was busy taking pictures of the activity on the yacht, Brenda—who was supposed to have been resting for her turn at the watch—snuck out in search of an all-night convenience store that carried organic, hand squeezed plum juice... on foot.  
  
After another exhaustive search—which had taken hours—Brenda saw the first convenience store of the night. _Sal's Smokes 'n Stuff_. It was instantly her Mecca. She'd stumbled through the door and landed, in exhaustion of course, on the checkout counter before the young clerk.  
  
Breathing hard she'd said, "God, you look good," and laughed. "You've got to be the handsomest guy I've seen in," she paused dramatically and lurched forward, "_days_."  
  
It hadn't been a lie, Brenda reflected. She'd barely seen a man at all. The few she'd encountered during her midnight—it was then the wee hours of the morning—search were as repulsive and dilapidated as the buildings around them. The clerk, with his acne, oily hair, and Cobain-esque fashion sense, was the sexiest thing with a dick she'd seen in a while.  
  
She'd flirted with him, out of exhausted glee of course, and before she'd inquired if his rundown establishment had organically grown and hand-squeezed plum juice she'd been attacked from behind, a bag had been placed over her head, and she'd been hauled away.  
  
Now she was linked to a very resentful Carly—via a set of metal shackles with a long chain connecting them, the likes of which Brenda has used on occasion for much less annoying endeavors—who blamed her, Brenda, for their capture. To top it off Brenda now heard scratching sounds emanating from the door into the plush and sensuous stateroom in which they were being detained.  
  
"How good was that story you told Sonny?"  
  
"Too good for our prayers to be answered," Carly answered. "No way is that the cavalry."  
  
"Shit."  
  
"Yeah, that's about the stench of it." Carly was being snarky but Brenda didn't care. She was far too upset.  
  
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit." She was panicking. If both she and Carly panicked they'd never get out alive. She didn't trust Carly not to panic. Regardless the bile rose in her throat. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit."  
  
"Shit," came a muffled voice form the other side of the door when Brenda took a much needed breath and thusly had to cease her cavalcade of the word.  
  
At the sound both Brenda and Carly ceased to move, or breathe.  
  
"I think you broke it, Steph." The sounds continued.  
  
"Thank you. I'm so glad I brought you along to point these things out to me, Lula."  
  
"Brought me nothin'. It was my car. It was my boat. We're partners in this, remember?"  
  
"You never let me forget it. And it wasn't your boat. I could have gotten the keys from Vinnie just as easy."  
  
"Oh, really? How?"  
  
"By asking." There was a loud derisive snort.  
  
Brenda and Carly exchanged a wary look. The accent was thick but definitely not one from far off lands. It sounded to Brenda like...no. No, couldn't be. Can't be. Absolutely not. This situation just went from really bad to a whole lot F'in worse.


	2. Episode II

Carly was tired, Carly was hot, Carly manacled to Brenda Barrett. It was not Carly's day.  
  
Carly had not had a "day" since Brenda, a returned-from-the-dead nemesis and over all pain in the ass, had dragged her into this mess.  
  
She'd been sitting at a patio table outside Kelly's, enjoying a quite moment while the kids were inside making sundaes and shakes with Bobbie and Penny (containing things that would give Sonny apoplexy). Then Brenda had dashed into the courtyard looking around hurriedly.  
  
Brenda proceeded to tell Carly a story about a mysterious man with a mysterious business card, a modeling agent sailing around on a yacht packed with beautiful models whom she was beginning to suspect were involved with drug running or prostitution. During the tale Carly'd figured that the Zirming character was probably trying to either hire Brenda's models into his little plot or hire Brenda as a scout for his sailing brothel.  
  
Brenda, on the other hand, had asked for Carly's help in figuring out which—drugs or prostitution—was going on. Far be it from Carly to point out that it was usually both.  
  
Carly'd urged Brenda to take the matter to Sonny or Mac but she'd adamantly refused. Brenda feared that Sonny would strike first, taking no prisoners. But what if she was wrong? The men would be "gone" and the women's careers would be ruined. But she couldn't go to Mac either because she didn't have any real legal evidence for him.  
  
Finally, Carly had conceded and said she'd help Brenda, but only as far as getting evidence one way or the other, and she'd done it against her better judgment.  
  
Sonny hated it when she pulled stuff like this. Not because he thought she was being stupid or crazy....well, not entirely. But because she was putting herself at risk, in danger. And what if something were to happen to her? If she were hurt, caught, convicted? How would he and their family survive without her? Anything that hurt her, hurt him.  
  
Her heart clutched as it always did when she thought of how much he loved her. How much she loved him. What an astonishing miracle it was that they wanted each other. She knew how he felt and understood it because she felt the same when things would get dangerous with the organization.  
  
Thinking of all this, she pondered how, she'd planned so carefully for their reconnaissance mission. All of which Brenda had thoughtlessly disregarded for six bloody, damn, freaking ounces of _plum juice_. The health and beauty merits of which she'd been forced to listen to in the form of long diatribes since the intrigue began. If Carly ever saw a bottle of organically grown, hand-squeezed plum juice she was going to smash it over Brenda's head...hopefully crushing her pin-sized brain.  
  
Now there were two more pin-heads bickering outside there door. If they weren't the guards, and the guards hadn't heard them, then they soon would. The whole conversation made Carly want to cry. She felt as if she were about to inherit two more Brendas as the petty banter on the other side of the door continued.  
  
"It's not my fault you don't know how to pick a lock."  
  
"I know how to pick a goddamned lock."  
  
"Stand aside, little girl. Let a _real_woman show you how it's done." In moments the scratching resumed. Carly wasn't scared or even worried. She figured her not inconsiderable powers of persuasion could be employed to get these two fumblers to help them...especially if they had lock picks.  
  
Soon the door clicked open and two strange women entered. One was wearing black combat boots that laced halfway up black legginged calves to meet a black windbreaker over a black shirt with an unruly amount of dark, curly hair pulled back and tucked through a black baseball cap. She was average height, curved, fair of skin, and pretty... just Sonny's type. _Oye!_. The other was a big, burly, chocolate skinned woman wearing black flip-flops, black miniskirt, a black halter top, and a black nit cap covering all but a single shock of her violently yellow-green hair. Beneath her arm was tucked a large black purse.  
  
Carly looked to Brenda, who also appeared green; it was of the puke-pea green variety. "Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," the burly woman exclaimed and crossed herself.  
  
"I don't suppose either of you knows where I can find Enzo Platz?" Carly and Brenda shook their heads at the white woman. "Thought not. Either of you jump a bond with Vincent Plum?" They shook their heads again. "Shit."  
  
"Why not? It's the word du jour." Carly's witty quip sounded half-hearted even to her. Nonetheless Brenda shoved her with a shoulder. "Hey, you're the one who actually reads the damn things." Carly had been mocking Brenda since she discovered that she had the word of the day text messaged to her cell phone every day.  
  
The newcomers, so stylishly dressed in this season's hottest colors, kept looking back and forth between them in bewilderment. "I don't suppose," Carly addressed them, "that you could do that with the door closed? I don't think you want the guards to find you."  
  
"How do you know? Maybe we is the guards? Maybe you should be scared of us?" Carly and the white girl looked askance at her. Brenda looked slightly stupefied by horror.  
  
The white chick closed the door. "Thanks." Carly said. "Do you want me to guess what you're doing in those get-ups or will you just tell me?"  
  
"Like I said, chippy, we're security guards," the black one barked.  
  
"And I'm Lisa Marie." Yup, Carly thought, a room full of Brendas.  
  
"Nice to meet you Lise." Carly felt the situation deteriorating. The woman was infernally confrontational.  
  
The white one raised a hand to steady her partner. "Maybe you two ought to tell us why you're here first."  
  
"Easy," Carly said pulling her hands far enough out from behind her to show the cuffs, "I'm shopping for jewelry."  
  
"I don't think those are 'cause of a citizen's arrest."  
  
"Shhh. I have to think. If these two are the legal problem that they were taking care of where's Enzo?"  
  
"Maybe they capped his ass," the black woman shrugged.  
  
"Um, Excuse me," Brenda said in the most cultured voice Carly had ever heard her use. "I'm really parched"—Carly snorted, Brenda elbowed her—"could one of you try to find something to dink in the bar over there?"  
  
The white girl warily made her way to the bar, giving Carly and Brenda plenty of berth should they try and charge her.  
  
As she opened the door Brenda called out, "see any plum juice?" Carly rolled her eyes and if she'd had a free arm she'd have decked Brenda.  
  
"Hey Steph, does she know you?"  
  
It was at that exact moment there were loud call in the hallway and feet trampled by. They looked shockingly around the room at one another. The black girl dashed around attempting to hide between several objects and finding them too small for cover. The white one righted the cabinets she'd searched.  
  
"The bed," Carly, whispered and began dragging Brenda towards it. They sat on the bed side closest to the door while the two in black hid as well as they could on the side farthest from the door. It wasn't much cover but it was the best they could do. Carly hoped to be able to keep them form venturing very far into the room.  
  
Finally the door swung open to reveal a harassed looking man who then search the room from the doorway. Carly put on her best shocked and afraid face. "What's going on?" Her voice trembled. "What's all the commotion for? Is the boat ok?" She went from frightened to panicked. "Oh, God, are we going down? Please, please, ...I can't swim very well. And certainly not with these." She tugged on the chains.  
  
"Ma'am," he said looking scared of her, "everything is fine. The ship is fine. There's just been a little security problem; we're fixing it."  
  
"Don't you lie to me," she said working steadily towards sobbing wreck. "I've seen _Titanic_, I know what happens." She was nearly screaming by the time Brenda put in.  
  
"Oh, for Christ's sake, why does everything have to be such a drama? He said there was nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong." Brenda looked at him—he was obviously ready to bolt, "tell her there's nothing wrong."  
  
"There's nothing wrong," he said hurriedly, leaped across the threshold and slammed the door shut. In a moment the lock clicked back and nobody moved.


	3. Episode III

Episode III:

Carly was still breathing hard and had tears on her face when, "oh, you're good," came in a deep booming voice from the other side of the bed. "Steph, aren't they good?" Carly could hear the sounds of the women righting themselves. "Hey, Steph, you oughta make them partners too."  
  
Carly still hadn't moved, neither had Brenda, when they came to stand before her. She finally ventured to look at their faces, beaming with gratitude. She could barely keep from lunging at them.  
  
"Did you, by any random chance, happen to leave a boat tied to the yacht?"  
  
"Yeah," the black one chimed in. "Steph" wasn't nearly as enthusiastic. In fact she looked a bit like the color Brenda had modeled earlier.  
  
"Idiots," she stood as she exclaimed.  
  
"Morons," Brenda followed her.  
  
Carly and Brenda looked at one another, shook their heads and said, "amateurs," together.  
  
"Oh, no honey-doll. We ain't no amateurs. We're professionals. Professionals in fugitive apprehension and bond enforcement."  
  
"You mean like bounty hunters?"  
  
The white woman all in black exploded then. "_I_am a bounty hunter, _you_do the filing." Her face was all red and seemed to be pulsing.  
  
"And occasionally drive...whenever your car meets with a fatal incident."  
  
Carly watched the woman shake with rage and thought, somebody's had a bad day.  
  
"If they hurt my Uncle Vinnie's boat we're dead so what does it matter who's a professional and who's a goddamned amateur?" She'd been yelling so loud Carly was afraid the guard would come back to make sure she and Brenda weren't in the throes of a double homicide.  
  
"Geeze," the black woman said rolling her eyes. "Speaking of which, what makes _you_better than us?"  
  
"Do you have any idea who she is," Carly angled her head at Brenda "She's the High Lady Grand Duchess of Yacht Issues and Intrigue. Go ahead Brenda," she nudge the woman with her elbow despite the wrath on Brenda's face. "Go on, tell them about the time you sunk a seventy-five foot yacht with a single flare gun."  
  
Carly gloated while Brenda fumed. The white woman rubbed her temples and looked as if she was about to start rocking herself.  
  
"Wow, you're even better than Steph here. All she ever kills is cars. Well, and people."  
  
"I almost never shoot people." It sounded flat and automatic.  
  
"Uh-hun." The black woman went back to looking at Carly and Brenda ponderously. "Ya know," she said after a moment, "you do kinda look familiar."  
  
"Well," Brenda said preening as much as a woman in S&M cuffs can, "I _was_the Face of Deception. Now I have a modeling agency in Europe with all the top models."  
  
"No," she said shaking her head, "that's not it."  
  
"Look, it's been a lovely chit-chat but can we get down to business now?" Carly was impatient to rescue herself. That way when she had to confess the whole, sordid tale to Sonny she could at least say, "but look baby, I got myself out of it. Cleaned up my own mess. Like a big girl."  
  
"She's right. We've got to think of a way out of this." She was no longer rubbing her head but she still looked slightly caged. And periodically placed a hand on her twitching left eye.  
  
"Thanks, Steph," Carly said using the name the black girl had employed. "First, I think, is Tit-for-Tat. We've given you information and protected you. Now it's time for you to give in return." Carly jingled her Boinking Inc. issued bracelets and angled her body so that they were more visible. The black girl knelt down on the floor with her purse and, taking something out of it, went to work on the S&M shackles. "Thank you..."  
  
"Lula."  
  
"Thanks, now about the information... Steph..." Carly'd learned early from Edward and Sonny that open expectation could get you a lot of information for free.  
  
"Stephanie, Stephanie Plum, bond enforcement agent," she said.  
  
"Carly, shackled chick. Now—"  
  
"Where are we?" Brenda cut in sounding desperate and looking more than a little spooked.  
  
"Jersey," said Lula from the floor as Carly's bonds relinquished her wrists at last. Lula turned to Brenda's.  
  
Brenda gasped, "what?"  
  
"We're just a little way down the shore Brenda, relax," Carly said watching the woman wind tighter and tighter. "We're still in the states; it'll be easy to contact Sonny and have him get us the hell out of here." Carly didn't _want_to call Sonny but she was prepared to take his worst just to get rid of Plum Juice Maniac #1.  
  
"I can't be in Jersey." Brenda screwed her eyes shut and shook her head violently. "It's impossible. No. No. No. No Jersey. You're lying," she said, her eyes popping open to pin Lula.  
  
"No lie, babe. Welcome to the garden state." She freed Brenda's wrists and stood. "Just breathe deep and you'll know you're in Jersey."   
  
She whimpered, "you're not lying. Oh, God. Not New Jersey." She closed her eyes as if to pray. Carly thought she saw a tear on her lashes.  
  
"Why not New Jersey?" Lula had obviously taken affront.  
  
"It's... it's...it's...so..._tacky_," Brenda sobbed. Suddenly her wet eyes opened and she looked truly astonished. "Oh, God,...you're Jewish, aren't you?"  
  
Carly's attention was glued to the two with lurid fascination. Like watching a car crash, or a train wreck or a building implode. You just couldn't look away. From her silence, Carly surmised, Stephanie had to be as enraptured by the impending doom as well.  
  
"_Tacky! Jewish! Are you blind?_" Lula was revved up and knew exactly where she was going when she let go. Carly almost felt sorry for Plum-Juice Brenda. "Oh... girl. My ancestors were _enslaved_by your skinny, white, anglo-saxon, rich-bitch, lazy, flat, little ass' relatives." Lula took a breath. "We were forced to build this country and then had to fight just to be considered citizens who couldn't be bought or sold on a whim by _your_people. And you, you snobby, dumb witch, come down here—to _my_state—too hopped up on drugs you bought with money your family made off slave backs to even know where you are and are fuckin' stupid enough to call me a tacky Jew?"


	4. Episode IV

Episode IV:

Stuck in what had to have been the worst day of my life, I prayed I would survive it. I have lots of worst days. I have the most memorable and worst days in all of Trenton, New Jersey. And the whole town knows about them. My shit-can of a day started with me deciding yet again to keep my relationship with Ranger, a co-worker and super human god of sorts, on a strictly friendly, non-physical level. I'd made this absolution several times, I just had more luck keeping it before we slept together. I will say this for me, at least I wasn't sleeping around on Morelli.  
  
Joe Morelli is an Italian-god, where Ranger is a Cuban-American-god, and a cop. Joe and I crossed the friend line when I was six and we were playing choo-choo in his garage. We never really stopped. At least not for long.  
  
So after a long night spent convincing myself I would not be snuggling up with Ranger, or Joe, and learn to rely on my hamster, Rex, I rolled out of bed and into the shower. That was my first mistake. I forgotten I'd tried to dye my sister's hair a nice strawberry blonde a week before, which was a disaster, and accidentally used what was left of the dye as shampoo. I was in a rush so I threw on clothes, my usual t-shirt and jeans, skipping the whole hair and make-up thing—nobody I want to see me looking good had been happy to see me for weeks.  
  
I was cruising into the offices of Vincent Plum—my uncle, bail bondsman, and there's a rumor he had an affair with a duck—as Ranger, male unhappy to see me number two, was leaving. Thinking at least my timing wasn't too horrible I parked my grass green Honda CRV at the curb. This is the tenth CRV I've owned... you'd think I'd learn.  
  
"Dear God," Connie, Vinnie's office manager said clutching her amble bosom, "what happened? Who'd you kill?" I'd like to point out that even though I almost never shot people and I am so afraid of my own gun I have to keep it in the cookie jar everyone acts like it happens all the time. "Should I call Ranger? He just left, maybe he can catch the guy."  
  
I was sure Ranger could. He could catch anybody. As far bounty hunters, ahem, sorry, bond enforcement agents go, he's aces. The best out there. He could and can catch anybody. Even himself. No one has been able to catch him. The address on his driver's license is a vacant lot and I know he kills people. Only bad people I'm pretty sure.  
  
Only people was the culprit was me and for Range to catch me we'd have to speak and we weren't doing that. Even in Ranger's cryptic one word messages. Bubkis.  
  
"No. Just give me the new FTAs." Connie handed me two files from the top of a small stack.  
  
"It just two easy ones. The usual Mooner." Mooner was this guy I'd gone to high school with only he was still in his smoke-anything-dude phase. He was still a nice guy and he'd helped me out a time or two. He was always pretty easy to find. Mostly he just forgot because he was stoned. More than once I'd taken him to his court date just so I wouldn't have to drag him in again. "And this guy, Enzo Platz. He works for that boat repair place mover on Cilborne, lives above the stored, alone. Drunken disorderly. Mama lives in the 'Burg."  
  
"Thank God, Mooner's always easy cash."  
  
"Rent late?"  
  
"Car insurance." Connie choked on her coffee.  
  
"How do you even i get /i insured?"  
  
I shrugged and left to go find The Mooner.  
  
When I found him he was cruising the mall with Grandma Mazur who'd just bought a cell phone from one of Mooner's buddies. I had them meet me at the Tastee Bakery, I needed a crumpet fix. I handed Grandma Mazur off to one of her cronies—they went to go see Chester Blumburg's wake—gorged with Mooner.  
  
"What's that smell," he asked on the way to the station. "It smells like a beauty salon."   
  
Luckily the entire time I was there Morelli was nowhere to be found and nobody even asked me about him. Unfortunately, my luck didn't hold. I left Mooner to be bonded out again by Vinnie and took my body receipt.  
  
Out in the parking lot I saw a huge group of cops huddled around something smoking. As I walked closer I realized it was my car. Some one dashed over with a fire extinguisher and I tried to put it out but it blazed up and took off my eye brows.   
  
I kinda let it burn after that. I sat on the ground with my head on my knees and watched my tenth Honda CRV go the way of the rest.  
  
Eddie Garzza, an old friend of mine and a cop, sat down next to me. "Should I go get the marshmallows? Or Morelli?"  
  
He handed me a tissue and I realized I was crying. I gave up and sobbed into my hands. I'd been crying for a while when a hands stroked my hair and was starting to stop when I heard, "hey, cupcake, why is it coming out in chunks? That's kinda nasty."  
  
I sat up and stared at the pile of my hair in Joe's hand. It was kinda nasty. I grabbed as much as I could quickly and stood. "I gotta go."  
  
"What's this about Steph? Who blew up your car this time?"  
  
"I don't know Joe." I yelled over my shoulder but he was following and his legs are a lot longer than mine.  
  
"That's not gonna cut it, damnit. I need to know who I'm supposed to be protecting you from."  
  
That pissed me off. Normally I liked being protected. When things went wrong I ran to Joe, or to Ranger. Hell, I'd even called Vinnie in a pinch. But he'd said it like it was his job, like he didn't have a choice and he hated it. All of which was kinda true. He was a cop so protecting people was his job, he didn't really have a choice. And he'd always been very open about hating my chosen career path. It was more of a road block to our making it work fulltime than even my fear of commitment. Well, ok maybe.  
  
"You don't have to protect me from anything. I can take care of myself."  
  
"Since when?"  
  
So what if he had a point? I've lived alone for years, I've never regretted being divorced, but if I didn't feel like doing my laundry I can just take it to my mom. If I dodn't have any food or feel like pizza I can always go home. And I do, a lot. It's expected, at times even required. And Morelli mooched too so that made his accusation unfair.  
  
Just then Ranger's black truck pulled up and he hopped out.  
  
"Fine. You and Ranger team up to protect me from myself and decide my life and when it's over you just tell me what I'm supposed to do. It shouldn't take long. The two of you actually agree on the major points anyway." I stopped into the station house to find a mirror so I could find out what had happened to my hair.  
  
It wasn't pretty. And that was just before lunch.


	5. Episode V

Episode V:

After I'd given my statement and glowered at Morelli and Ranger when I left with Lula, we went to go look into Enzo Platz. The shop was open and we talked to the owner but Platz wasn't there. He hadn't shown up for work and his apartment was empty. His mother hadn't seen him or heard from him. It was a big nothing. So Lula and I went to the mall for emergency surgery.  
  
My usual hair guy wasn't there and there was no way I was going to Lula's instead, out of desperation I sat in the chair of a girl with hair every shade from platinum to brown ending in black from the roots of her hair down.  
  
"Jesus, Ma, you gotta see what she did to her hair."  
  
"Oh, man. What did you do?" She took a whiff and I saw her wince in the mirror.  
  
I shrugged.  
  
"Luce, come give this a snorkel." The mother called.  
  
Luce, whose hair could have had a whole spotlight in i Hairspray /i , was even older than Grandma Mazur. She sniffed. Twitched her face and sniffed again.  
  
"Clariol 45 permanent, it's decayed a few days though. That's why no color. Sister, the box says one time use for a reason."  
  
"Yeah but can you fix it?"  
  
"Rainbow Bright here can fix anything," Luce said, "can't you Julie?"  
  
"'Course I can." She turned to Lula. "If you're going to stay get comfy."  
  
After three hours of rising, masking, moisturizing, and lots of head shaking over the state of my ends and eyebrows I was wishing I'd lost all my hair. It would have saved me a lot of pain and I wouldn't have to catch this Enzo guy to keep my checking account from revolting and eating me alive.  
  
"There," she said and spun me in the chair to face the mirror. It wasn't bad. It was much shorter, a pony tail would be hard for the first few weeks and there were lots of layers to hid the half missing clumps and the curls were all tight and fluffed. My hair rarely looked this good. Usually only when some one else was paid to do it.  
  
"Much better, but I still say my guy would have done better, he would have added some color, pizzazz," Lula said.  
  
"And noting else will fall out?"  
  
"Not unless you mess it up again." She talked me into special shampoo, conditioner, a whole pile of styling products and when I left the shop my credit card whimpered.  
  
On our way out there were these amazing bright green velvet pumps. Lula and I ohhed in chorus. "You gotta have those to go with your new look. And something classy, you know, business like. I bet if you was more business like Morelli and Ranger wouldn't treat you so much like a kid."  
  
She had a point. All I ever wore were t-shirts and jeans. A jean skirt occasionally. Maybe if I wore something more professional they'd take me seriously and stop telling me what to do.  
  
So Lula and I bought a suit. She wanted the lime green and pink pinstripe spandex but I went with an all black pants and jacket suit. Black goes with every thing. And I found an almost matching green tank-top—hey, who was going to notice they were the same exact shade, the shoes were on my feet. No one would even have the close enough together to look unless my beck went out when I touched my toes.  
  
So when we left the mall my credit card was crying loudly and I had to grimace when I put it away. Lula and I picked up McDonald's on our way to my apartment to change.  
  
I fed Rex a French fry. "How do you like my new look? It says responsible-adult-takes-care-of-herself...and-her-hamster." He stood on his hind legs, looked around, twitched his nose, took the fry in his mouth and went back into his soup can. "Rex likes it," I called out to Lula.  
  
"Now we need to go try out our new serious professional look."  
  
To be honest Lula's look wasn't that new and I always wear black, it hides stains and, as I said, it goes with everything.  
  
So we went to my parents house in a section of Trenton where everyone knows you and your mother hears all the gossip about you just after it happens.  
  
"Somebody died," my mother said, crossing herself.  
  
"No."  
  
"You going to a funeral? Must be a humdinger and it must be outa town. I haven't heard anything about a good funeral or wake," said Grandma Mazur.  
  
"No."  
  
"You're announcing your engagement to Joseph at dinner." My mother looked ready to genuflect.  
  
"Definitely not."  
  
Her face fell about two feet. I thought about suggesting plastic surgery and then didn't. It would be a sure way to never get pineapple upside-down cake again. I love pine apple upside-down cake.  
  
"You got a new job. They took you back at the lingerie counter." My mother stubbornly clung to the hope that something she wanted for me would be the reason that I had a new, much more mature look. I hated to disappoint her but even if I lied, which I'm really good at, she would have figured it out and been disappointed anyway.  
  
"No. Mom, nothing's changed. I still work for Uncle Vinnie and I still live alone, and Joe and I aren't getting married."  
  
"What about the Ranger boy, he seemed," and here my mother had to choke out the word, "nice?"  
  
"Mom, Ranger is just a friend."  
  
"A very sexy friend," Grandma Mazur said. "I'd do him."  
  
My mother headed into the kitchen and the bottle of liquor she'd taken to hiding there. If I wasn't careful I was going to drive her into being just like Grandma Mazur. A brief stint of living together in my apartment taught me that Grandma would hide bottles in her closet and drink herself into a stupor if no one took them away from her.


End file.
